


Promises

by feedmyflame



Category: Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, Incest, Sexual Content, Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-26
Updated: 2013-01-26
Packaged: 2017-11-26 22:44:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,418
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/655200
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/feedmyflame/pseuds/feedmyflame
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(Set after 2x21.) All they have is each other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Promises

She could hear him crying.

She stood outside his door, laid her head gently against the wood. It was faint, but she could hear it, and it weighed her heart down into her stomach.

_He’s lost so many people. It’s all my fault._

She hadn’t bothered to change yet. Her heels had fallen off when she crossed the threshold of the now-empty house, Jeremy plodding stoically behind her, but other than that the funeral garb still clung to her. What a horrible tradition it was to wear black. Elena was sick of wearing black.

A crash startled her, and her head jerked from the door.

“Jeremy?” She pushed into his room in a panic, blood cold. Privacy and boundaries weren’t really in her repertoire, not when it came to her brother. (Yes, that’s what he was, no matter what genetics had to say about it.)

He ducked his face away from view, showing her his back instead. His lamp was shattered in the corner and his shoulders flexed laterally with each heaving breath.

“Sorry if I woke you,” he said after a pause, his voice barely controlled.

Elena approached him instinctively, laying a hand on his turned shoulder. He flinched, moved away, and her stomach flopped in irrational panic.

“Hey, Jer. Come on,” she said, trying to keep from sounding needy and failing. “Don’t shut me out.” She tried again for a meaningful touch, aiming futilely to comfort him.

“Look, I just need space, okay? I’m not exactly new at this. I don’t need you to take care of me.”

She bit her lip and cursed its tremors. _He’s just hurting. He doesn’t mean it._

“They would want us to take care of each other.” Elena forced herself to sound calm, steady, capable. She took deep breaths, trying to hold herself at bay. 

He couldn’t shut her out. He was all she had. 

“Please, can you at least tell me what you’re feeling?”

“You know what I’m feeling, Elena?” He spoke, cruelly, to the wall. “I’m feeling like I can’t trust anyone. I’m feeling like if I lose one more person I might break. And I’m feeling like…like I don’t want to look at you right now, okay? Just leave me alone.”

All at once Elena couldn’t breathe, started shaking. Felt a sick panic shoot outwards from her abdomen through her chest, weakening her limbs, making her dizzy. She wished he’d punch her, wished he’d shove her into the corner with the lamp where broken things belonged. Wished he’d break bones.

_He’s just scared. He doesn’t mean it._

She was weak and he was getting stronger by the day, but her terror pushed him around to face her. Tears on her twisted face, she grabbed his hair, forced his face toward hers.

“Look at me.”

Her voice scared him. He froze, too thrown off to shake her.

“Jeremy,” she said carefully, enunciating slowly. “You won’t lose me. Do you hear me? You can hate me, you can blame me, you can try to push me away, but you won’t ever lose me. I promise.”

He met her eyes, feared their fire, looked away quickly. His chest rose and fell rapidly as a stuttering choke fell into the air, tears fighting their way onto his lashes. She expected anger, but what she got was worse.

His answer was so small.

“How do you know?”

He watched the heartbreak on her face and knew she’d made a promise she couldn’t keep. The last thing he wanted to do was keep looking at her lies, and he made a move to turn away.

Elena thought she might throw up, couldn’t think of anything else to say—she made a sound that wasn’t quite a sob, wasn’t quite a whimper, and then she tightened her grip on his hair because all she knew was how badly she needed to hold on. Her fingers yanked at his roots until she could smell the whiskey on his breath. When had he had the time to get drunk? _Tyler Lockwood_ , she guessed angrily—he must have passed around a flask sometime between the service and greeting mourners. 

_It’s all my fault._

“I’m so sorry, Jeremy. I’m so sorry.”

Too exhausted to fight her, Jeremy submitted dully, breathing alcohol onto her face, and she relaxed her grip, the rough grasp turning tender as she smoothed his hair down.

Instead of retreating, though, her hands snaked behind his neck.

(She didn’t know why. Maybe she wanted to distract him. Maybe she wanted him to forgive her. Maybe she needed to be close to him, so close she’d forget the promise she couldn’t keep.)

Elena pulled Jeremy towards her firmly until his lips mashed to hers. It wasn’t sweet or slow—it almost hurt, awkward teeth tearing at fallible flesh. He whimpered miserably into her wet face, confused, but at first he didn’t pull away, not that she would have let him.

“Elena…?”

“Shh,” she said, fusing him to her as she pawed at her own zipper with one hand and his with the other. It was no easy task managing both, and after a few seconds she nearly stomped her foot in frustration. She couldn’t even do this.

Her hesitation broke his fog, and coming to, Jeremy shoved her off him.

“What are you, sick?” 

But he didn’t look away. 

_(At least he’s looking.)_

He looked at her face as she backed against his door, her scant weight swinging it shut. He looked at her face as it fell apart into a disassociated scramble. He looked at her face as she doubled over, sobbing, arms clutching at her stomach. 

Then he didn’t want to look at her face anymore, and he crossed the room in two strides, and he flipped it into the wood. 

(Once again she found her head pressed against the door. At least now it was pressing from the inside.)

Jeremy pinned his sister’s smallness below him, swallowing it whole, and she curled her arms up against her chest obligingly, craving to disappear. Furious warmth pressed her on one side, wood on the other. She relaxed into the bind with each exhale, and her sobs slowly petered out. 

(She didn’t care that he hated her, as long as she could feel him. As long as he was looking.)

They stood like that for a while, whiskey tainting their shared air. Eventually Jeremy let his head fall into Elena’s shoulder, her tiny frame supporting its weight. 

(Anger is heavy, too heavy to hold on your own.)

Forehead resting against the boards, Elena screwed her eyes shut and shifted her hips against his. He let out a stuttering “hmm” into her ear, and she shifted again, with more purpose. Suddenly he smashed against her, wedging her into stillness, heavy, heavy. She felt him starting to stiffen.

She paused at the precipice, her mind blanking, head bowed.

A silent minute, then:

“Jeremy,” she said into the wood, “put your hand on my hip.”

Pause. His hands stayed pressed against the door on either side of her.

“Now, Jeremy.”

He ignored her, instead stepping back.

He looked her. (But not at her face.) 

Deliberately he scanned her back, locating the zipper she’d had so much trouble with. He stared it down, wiped a tear to see it clearly. Decision made, he moved quickly, afraid that if he stopped to think he wouldn’t move at all. Would be stuck forever. Elena stood still, facing the door without expression as his fingers worked the cloth apart, moving only her arms to let him pull the dress up over them, clumsy. He fumbled with her bra clasp, slipped the fabric down her limbs. It joined her dress in a pile and he unzipped his pants, letting them fall as he moved into her once more, his force reacquainting her forehead with the door.

He didn’t say a word. Didn’t kiss any part of her, even. Kept his lips to himself.

His hands traced the curve of her sides, velvet flesh moving against his palms; she tucked herself into his touch, desperate to feel as much of him against her as would fit on her skin. He moved over her shoulders, her arms, her stomach, hungry fingers on obliging pieces, and she squeezed her eyes shut with a gratified moan when he reached her breasts. 

“Let me take your shirt off,” she asked, feeling like she needed permission to turn to him. She didn’t get it; Jeremy’s right hand undid his own buttons while the left traced the flesh above his sister’s rapid heartbeat. 

Pressing his firmness into her back, Jeremy removed his shirt, arm tangling a little. Once his limbs were free, he did as his sister had commanded him, folding her hipbones beneath his grip to anchor her.

Elena felt a familiar thump behind her pelvis, the kind that awoke when she thought about Katherine’s tongue working up her thigh. An emptiness grew in her, beyond the loss she’d endured, and she reached to shove the last remaining cloth from her frame, teasing against the erection that pressed into her as she wriggled hastily out of her underwear.

Fast was good. She needed him as close as she could get him, and patience wasn’t her strong suit.

His hands had taken up residence on her hips, kneading them in possessive exploration. He moved her forward slightly, testing the limits of his control, and she submitted absolutely. Satisfied, he slowly let his right hand wander; he drew circles on the plane of her, lightly trailing along the juncture of her hip and thigh. The delicacy of his movements weakened her, and she leaned back into him, left arm cocked to let her hand work into his hair. She vocalized her pleasure, feeling herself become wet to his traveling touch.

 _Where did he learn that?_ A ridiculous protective instinct flooded her as she thought of the girls he must have slept with. She had no right to be protective. Christ, she couldn’t even protect him from herself.

She didn’t stop it.

Jeremy steadied her still with his left hand, holding her against him as his cock responded to her shallow breath. He worked his untethered hand down her, igniting the space between her legs; gentle strokes covered her lower hip, her inner thigh, and she arched against him in guilty anticipation. Stopping to make her crave it, make her need it, he waited for her protests. He wasn’t disappointed.

“Don’t stop,” she panted, moving into his immobile hand. “Please, Jer, don’t stop…”

He started to withdraw his hand and she clutched at it, unable to bear him leaving her now. “Please.” She didn’t dare turn to look at him, not when he’d already denied her, but the hand on his scalp stroked pleadingly, and she tugged him back towards her cunt, forcing him to feel the wetness that had collected in reaction to his proximity.

He grabbed the hand that held his, twisted it sharply behind her back, and she called out in painful surprise.

Marching her over to his desk, Jeremy shut out the part of his brain that still formed sentences, complete thoughts, protests. He didn’t want that part, didn’t need it. What he needed was to be inside his sister, and he needed to come, and fuck, if he didn’t also need her, so when he bent Elena onto the scattered papers he unfurled her arm and laced his fingers through hers. He slammed the intertwined digits onto the flat surface and slammed into her at the same time, feeling the wet warmth of her close around his cock, and he moved over her with absent want. 

Finally, he spoke to her.

“God, Elena,” he said. “Oh my God.” He clutched at her hair, needing something to hold on to, and thrust into her again, face contorting unceremoniously. (She couldn’t see it, though, of course.) She clenched rhythmically around him as he slid out of her, and he bowed his head into her back, muttering abandoned syllables.

He forgot to stimulate her, lost inside her, and she freed a hand to work around her clit, angling herself so that his thrusts rubbed the most sensitive reaches inside her. His abandon excited her all the more, and she moved her fingers in time with his motions as they grew more frenzied. The desk pressed up against her bones, and she didn’t let herself worry about the fact that she hadn’t made eye contact with him since breaching their sibling boundary. She focused instead on the friction of her brother sliding in and out of her, and on the mounting pleasure that seemed to radiate from every corner.

“Go ahead,” she said, choking the words out as she pushed back against him. Her cheek dragged on the desk. “Jeremy…”

His fingers moved gently between the webbing of hers, back and forth, as his body rocked violently, speeding anxiously. Lips found her shoulder, and he spoke distractedly into her flesh and he spasmed, muscles contracting as he rode out the ecstasy of Elena’s warmth. She sped her own strokes to match him, pleasure and desperation conspiring to overtake her, and she called out his name as her orgasm flowed over her body in arresting waves. She curled her fingers tightly around his, pulling him as close to her as she could manage, and focused on the part of him that was inside her.

He was as close as she could bring him.

*

Breathing together, they let the desk support them through the aftershocks, clutching at each other recklessly.

(What else did they have to hold on to?)

When Jeremy drew out of her, Elena collapsed imperceptibly against the supporting surface, already missing his presence. She collected herself and scurried to collect her clothes as well, silently hoping he’d ask her to stay, but not sure if he was ready to let her.

“Elena?”

He’d collapsed on his bed, seated at its foot, and his eyes searched for hers.

“Elena, would you…I mean…”

She looked at him, searched his face, and what she found was broken.

She pulled her dress back over her head, sat down next to him, and pulled his head against her chest.

He let tears fall on black fabric, and she left kisses in his hair until he let her nudge him horizontal, clutching him into her embrace under his blanket. She dropped comforting murmurs into his ear until he drifted asleep.

She didn't sleep for hours.


End file.
